POTD #19

Photo of the Day

"When he was born it looked like he had zombie hands and feet"

This is a shot of my wife and newborn son's hands. Took this maybe a week or two after he was born. We knew we were probably pushing our luck trying to get River to pose for us, and we were mostly right. We didnt go into the shoot with very much expectation other than to get some studio photos of him when he was really young.

Its probably not clear in this smaller version of the photo, but his hands (and feet) were really chapped and peeling because he was almost two weeks overdue. When he was born it looked like he had zombie hands and feet because they were really big, gray and wrinkled, his nails were also long and crazy looking.

Considering I only got peed on twice during this shoot I would say it went pretty well.

The Breakdown: I shot this on a black felt backdrop with two off-camera flashes (a Sunpak 383 and an Olympus FL-50) on light stands with umbrellas. For more info on off camera lighting check out strobist.blogspot.com it will change the way you look at lighting.

I ran a sync cable from my camera to the FL-50 and used two Adorama slave adapters one to the FL-50 because it doesnt have a port to plug the sync cable into and the Adorama adapter lets me do that, the other on the Sunpak 383 so it would act as a slave and fire when the FL-50 did.

I converted the image to black & white in Photoshop.

Camera:		Canon EOS 5d
Exposure:		0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture:		f/5.6
Focal Length:		95 mm
ISO Speed:		100
Exposure Bias:		0 EV

Here are links to some of the equipment I used to get this shot. If the equipment I used is no longer available I have listed either the newer version or a similar substitute. I no longer use some of the items on this list.

Photoshop CS4

Canon EOS 5d

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Lens

Olympus FL-50R - Replacement for the FL-50

Vivitar DF283 - A good alternative to the discontinued Sunpak 383

Adorama Electronic Slave Unit - Attach one of these to your flash and it will fire when it detects another flash

Smith Victor RS8, 8' Raven Lightstand - Very sturdy and just the right height

Photoflex Shoe Mount Multiclamp with Umbrella Holder - Use one of these to attach your flash to a lightstand and you can also use an umbrella with it

Adorama 40" White Interior Umbrella with Removeable Black Cover - This is really a great deal. You can use this to shoot through or to bounce. The bigger the better.

My Photography Workflow:

I shoot in raw,
organize and review shots in Adobe Bridge,
process raw files in Adobe Camera Raw
and export as .jpeg if im done,
if I need to do more work in Photoshop I export as .tiff,
make final touches in Photoshop,
I add titles, descriptions and keywords in Bridge when im done editing.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.

POTD #4

Photo of the Day


This is a shot of my wife when she was eight months pregnant with our son. We really wanted to do some nice photos, but it was hard to know when to take them. We wanted to record what she looked like "really pregnant" but not wait too long and have her go into labor early. As it turns out we could have waited another month and nine days, although I dont think Carra would have been in the mood to pose for me at that point.

The breakdown: I shot this on a black backdrop with two off-camera flashes (a Sunpak 383 and an Olympus FL-50) on light stands with umbrellas. For more info on off camera lighting check out strobist.blogspot.com it will change the way you look at lighting.

I ran a sync cable from my camera to the FL-50 and used two Adorama slave adapters one to the FL-50 because it doesnt have a port to plug the sync cable into and the Adorama adapter lets me do that, the other on the Sunpak 383 so it would act as a slave and fire when the FL-50 did.

After shooting the image I converted the image to black and white in Photoshop.

I took this shot with the Canon 5d with the 24-105mm lens at 73mm, f6.3, 1/200 sec, ISO 100.

All my photos are shot in raw and edited in Photoshop.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

POTD #2

Photo of the Day


This is an example of how to use the existing light to get a good photo.

The breakdown: I took this shot on a bright sunny day because I was going for a summer yard work theme. Because it was so bright out I used a big 40" reflector on my left side (opposite the sun) to bounce some of that light back on the front of the mower.

I took this shot with the Canon 5d with the 24-105mm lens at 45mm, f5.6 and 160/sec ISO 100.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions.
Thanks!

Macro Photography on the cheap

*Above photo from i-source-global.com

If you like shooting things up close you have to try out extension tubes.

Extension tubes are a great way to take great macro and extreme close up photos using the lenses you have already. They are also cheap because they have no glass in them, they are just hallow tubes.

I just found some generic no brand tubes for about $20 that work fine. The only downside is they are built pretty cheap and do not communicate with my camera so I have to do all the settings manually and there is a little guess work involved. For about $80 you can get a really nice one that is built a little more solid and will have some auto ability with your camera.

If you have any questions about extension tubes feel free to email me.
travismanley@hotmail.com